More Opinion by The Springboard

THE UPRISING OF THE AMERICAN PARTY
"Clearly the voters are engaged right now, at least for sure on the republican side, and what they have concluded is that the republican party has not done their job. Thus, Donald Trump gets their vote."

Saturday, June 15, 2013

The Failure of an American President

I have no desire at all for a president to fail. But when a president does in fact fail, I think it is all too imperative that the American people recognize this, despite any party affliliations one may have, or any other biases for that matter. To do anything else is to the detriment of the institution of the presidency of the United States, and to the country itself.

I think in the case of president Barack Obama, his failure to the American people is all too obvious, and on many levels. But also obvious is that part of the reason that the president has managed to escape his own failures is that a large population of Americans are simply disengaged from the issues that rule the day. Even worse, I think the pool of these disengaged Americans, whom are otherwise often referred to as the uninformed voter, is a growing pool.

How else could president Barack Obama have been reelected but without the support of uninformed voters?

During his presidency gas prices doubled, and median household income was slashed by a whopping $4,000 a year. Not only that, but unemployment rates were sustained above 8% for a stubborn 40 months or so. And something I find interesting that doesn't seem to get a lot of attention is a statement made by Congressman Betty Sutton that in 2010, on average, 23 manufacturing facilities were permanently shuttered every single day.

The latter I find particularly interesting considering democrats have always been on the side of American labor and jobs. Moreover, manufacturing jobs are the bread and butter of the middle class, and provide good paying jobs to people who perhaps have less opportunity to go to college—in other words, the working class that democrats have always touted being on the side of obviously received no benefit whatsoever from the Obama administration during his first term in office when so many promises were made that he would fix a broken economy, and put hard working middle class America back to work.

Back to work where would be a good question since few businesses were hiring, and any new businesses in the green economy that Barack Obama claimed would provide new jobs with great pay for struggling American workers mostly have all gone bankrupt.

The green economy has produced no real new jobs for anyone, and while unemployment numbers may be showing some indication of improving, we are not even close to replacing the total of lost jobs since the beginning and end of the Great Recession.

And then of course, there was Benghazi, which I think would have been a terrible blow to any president on any side of the aisle seeking reelection. Four Americans died. And it is clear that the Obama administration lied to the American people about what happened. Moreover, the failure by the Administration to keep Americans safe in regions where there were obvious threats to safety, was all but ignored by the people who helped to keep president Obama in the White House.

My point in all of this is that it is okay to give a shot to the new kid in town. Barack Obama came onto the scene almost out of nowhere and was able to connect with the American people, and brought great messages of hope and change, and made a promise to the American people that he would be the great leader in restoring the faith of the American people in their government. He was going to fix things and make life better for everyone. But he did none of these things. And it is not okay to fail to recognize this. It is not okay to overlook failures.

The people did not overlook the failures of Richard Nixon. Nor did they overlook the failures of Jimmy Carter. The American people got it. Something was wrong, and the American people were paying focused attention to the details. The American people on both sides of the aisle did not allow for excuses to be made.

Richard Nixon resigned, in part, because he knew that to do otherwise would damage the country, and he knew that to continue to serve in the office of the president was not in the best interest of the American people. And Jimmy Carter was not reelected because clearly no one was better off than they were when he took office.

As a result of uninformed voters and disengaged Americans, a president was allowed to slide past the radar, and allowed to perpetuate the course of failure, and this may prove a very difficult course to reverse. The impact on the American people and the American way of life has been severely compromised in my opinion, and while I am not suggesting doomsday has arrived, I think it can only get worse.

Now we have the IRS scandal, the AP scandal, and we still don't know what happened in Benghazi. Of course there was Fast and Furious. And the economy is still in the slowest recovery mode in history. Worst of all, the president has only increased his belief in the policies that have yet to be proven to have helped in any way.

Failure is not something to hope for at all. But it is also not something to be ignored.

About Me

Jim Bauer currently resides with his wife in Southern Illinois, recently transplanted from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Writing is a passion, from the serious commentary to the blabbering ramble. "So long as the pen keeps moving, life is good." He also writes music and plays guitar. His original song "102 Idle Stones" can be found on Amazon MP3 and iTunes among other places. He is also editor of the horror fiction anthology, "Dark Whispers," as Ivan S. Graves, available in Kindle format.